Turnout of 32.9 percent of Egypt's nearly 52 million registered voters was quite a bit lower than most other elections that have taken place since the uprising nearly two years ago that ousted authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak.

The opposition had campaigned against it, with massive street protests that sometimes turned deadly, arguing that it will usher in Islamic rule and restrict freedoms.

JAPAN

Cabinet resigns, clearing the way

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's Cabinet has resigned to clear the way for a vote in parliament to install the nation's new leader, Shinzo Abe, whose nationalist positions have in the past angered Japan's neighbors.

Noda's fall ends more than three years at the helm for the left-leaning Democratic Party of Japan and brings back the more conservative, pro-big business Liberal Democratic Party, which governed Japan for most of the post-World War II era until voters fed up with scandals and Japan's sagging economy tossed them out in 2009.